New to ALFA, good place to start??

[The_Beef]

Hi everyone!

I recently decided I would give ALFA a try but I wanted to ask a few questions to help me get things rolling...

1) What's a good city to start in? Where might I meet a few people who I can go on adventures with?

2) How unforgiving is the permadeath here? Average level for PCs?

3) For my first PC I would like to join a faction because I feel that would be a great way to meet people IC and get a feel for the server. Any active factions for the following?
A) Banite
B)Helmite
C)Torm/Tyr/Ilmater



Initially I'd like to try out playing a cleric of helm, but we'll see. Thanks in advance for any answers and I hope to see you all in game soon!

[Zelknolf]

Welcome to ALFA!

We have answers for your questions:
1) Every server has several valid start locations, all with good places to start for a new PC and solid content to play with. Baldur's Gate on ALFA 010 BG, Silverymoon or Rivermoot on ALFA 003 TSM, Caer Corwell or Caer Calidyrr on ALFA 009 Moonshaes. That really depends on the sort of flavor you're looking for (Silverymoon has a lot of "us vs. the nameless hordes of not-us," Baldur's Gate has a lot of intrigue and character vs. character conflict, and Moonshaes has a lot of rugged/ dangerous survival in relative isolation).

The "average" ALFA PC tends to be in the 5-8 range; our highest-level PC was 15 (but he died), and we've got a dozen and some who've made it to level 10 throughout ALFA's history.

2) We have some failsafes to prevent death from terrible luck on one roll, but once your character's dead, it's dead. It takes pen-and-paper spells to bring the dead back to life (Raise Dead, unless your character's been dead more than a week-ish, were killed by death magic, or someone took away a valuable body part from your character's corpse: then Resurrection), with their pen-and-paper spell components (it costs 5000 gold to get the diamond you need to cast Raise Dead, and 10,000 for the diamonds you need to cast Resurrection).

3)
A) Sort of. We had a powerful Banite faction at one point, but they've lost numbers. Might try contacting AnalogKid. His character is well-known as a high-ranking Banite, and would be feasible to seek out in character.
B) Not anymore, I'm afraid. HEEGZ is trying to prod some life into a Red Knight faction (which isn't exact, but it's certainly a very martial and strategic sort of lawful neutral), though it currently boasts no players (however, it also boasts an interested DM-- which is usually the best way to see a faction kept alive).
C) Not really. Lathander has the most paladins in ALFA by far. Ironically, the Triad seems to pop up in isolation here, and doesn't really faction, except in connection to another faction. (the Knights in Silver on TSM would surely welcome a Triadic fellow happily, and you'd get a lot of the flavor you're looking for there).

[hollyfant]

Hello, hello! Welcome to ALFA.

1) What's a good city to start in? Where might I meet a few people who I can go on adventures with?

Check the server population just under the logo here in the forum, during the times you plan to be playing.

2) How unforgiving is the permadeath here? Average level for PCs?

The traditional welcome here is: "Good luck with your second character.", and that's for a good reason. As a rule, your first PC (or PCs) dies at level 1 or 2 due to misfortune or stupidity. Get over that hurdle, and they can get "old" by our standards.
Which is roughly level 10 - around here, double digits are practically epic.

Initially I'd like to try out playing a cleric of helm

The Helmite faction had a long and illustrious run on TSM, but died out a while ago. The temple in Silveymoon still has all the trappings of a guild hall, so you could try and get the ball going again.

[Brokenbone]

There are probably also "racial" factions to consider. Loads of elves about for instance. Dwarves oddly under-represented right now, despite lots of dwarven content kicking around from a couple yrs dwarven-heavy campaign where a key death and then some retirements all of a sudden cut out dwarfy-stuff.

Hollyfant's advice is good though. Even a sort of "middle of the road" concept or two to try out, and then realize if there's something you see as a niche needing filled wherever you find yourself enjoying playing, may lead to retiring that test character and rolling up whatever you think is "needed," or a good fit for play in certain areas & times.

Have fun!

[HEEGZ]

Welcome to ALFA. I am indeed working on the Red Knight faction on BG. However, you might have better luck watching which servers, players, and DMs are active during your normal play times. You might try a generic concept for starters just to see who is playing and what is happening. Once you have a feel for things then you could roll a new PC that fits with the people who are playing when you are. Good luck, and have fun!

[johnlewismcleod]

The above advice is to good to try to improve upon, I think

Welcome aboard, matey!

[t-ice]

Hey and welcome!

One question is important:
What's your TimeZone and possible hours?

Like said above, you should ask around (IRC is good for this) at the hours you can game, and see who are the DMs and players who could regularly play with you.

For my own part, I am DMing evenings on euro times. Been trying to establish that on Thursdays, usually. If you're an American who works when I play, well, doesn't matter to you what factions I'd be doing. On the other hand, if you could be regularly on on euro evenings, get it touch!

[Aitana]

Hello and welcome to ALFA. Seems most have answered your questions well enough already so I will save us both the trouble and not repeat them. I will say if you have any further questions please don't hesitate to ask here on the forums or in our irc chat. Also you could just come to the chat to say hello, it is a good tool for finding players to play with.

Look forward to seeing you in game.

Aitana

[maxcell]

Aitana openly welcomes the beef.